User Reviews

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.

'Oom Pah Pah' is one of the best Aesop's Fables cartoons and also to me one of Van Beuren's best overall. It may not be a masterpiece or a cartoon classic, but it is so much more entertaining than most Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons. There are a few of the usual flaws but a lot is done right as well.

Story is barely existent and loses momentum a little in the last third.

Like most of the Van Beuren output and the Aesop's Fables series. the animation is not great, with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.

However, two thirds of 'Oom Pah Pah' goes at a snappy pace and contain some well-timed and amusing gags that are many and has a likeable strangeness. Don't expect it to make sense, it doesn't. The difference is that so much is executed so well it is much easier to forgive than with most of their efforts that don't excel anywhere near as much.

The characters are engaging, the energy is lively and the synchronisation has a smoothness.

Best of all is the music score, it is typically peppy and great fun to listen to. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. Synchronisation is nicely done.

In conclusion, decent. 7/10 Bethany Cox

With almost all of these early cartoons, it's any excuse to make music. Here, group of five jazzy musicians cause havoc wherever they go because people begin to dance and carry on. Even the evil cop who brutalizes everyone can't resist. Everything ends up in court when a riot ensues. No real plot to speak of but lots of fun music.

Synchronization was a phase in animation after the first sound films -- depending on whether you think the gong belongs to Disney for SEAMBOAT WILLIE or not. The Fleischer Brothers were producing early versions of their Screen Songs in 1925 and van Beuren's first sound cartoons came out several month's before Disney's.

In any case, there was a transition period during which a cartoon might play in a theater equipped with sound one day and one without the next. Therefore sound tracks had to be merely accompaniment to a gag and not the gag itself. These were the synchronized cartoons. This is one of the best I have ever seen.

It still shows all the typical shortcuts intended to cut down the cost of a cartoon: repeating action, light on the backgrounding and so forth. However, this cartoon about the travails of an Oompah band wandering the streets of the city trying to earn some money has some topnotch gags going for it -- notice the throwaway gag of the pendulum clock in the courthouse -- and some very nicely handled characters. I am quite taken with the policeman, whose dark uniform shows up beautifully in the print I saw.

Synchronization left its mark on cartoons for many years afterwards, particularly with two classes of gags that were driven into the ground: the rubber-tire animation in which everything transformed into everything else, and the items-come-to-life gag. You see some of them here but they appear in sufficient variety that they are very funny.